Americans hearing loud wake-up call

Americans hearing loud wake-up call

Comment

DailyTidings.com

Writer

Posted Jan. 29, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Posted Jan. 29, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

Americans hearing loud wake-up call

I appreciated "Using Art to tackle climate change" (Tidings, Jan. 25th) but would like to add some comments. The event is an activity of the newly formed Southern Oregon Climate Action Network (www.soclimate.org) a local grassroots organization committed to promoting awareness and understanding about climate change, and encouraging reasonable responses. Links to information and flyers on the organization, climate change, and the event can be found on the SOCAN web site.

The event "It's Rogue Thing; Bringing Climate Concerns Home" provides an opportunity for residents of Southern Oregon to gather to demonstrate their concern for climate change, its local consequences, and the need for our elected representatives, at all levels of government from city to federal, to take whatever action they can. We need both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help residents prepare for the climate consequences that are inevitable.

Polls of public opinion reveal that after the last two years of severe weather events (droughts, floods, wildfires, storms) Americans are hearing a loud "wake-up" call. We find that over 75 percent now identify addressing climate change as a government priority. Similarly, over 90 percent now support promoting clean energy rather than continuing to subsidize polluting fossil fuel energy. Nearly the same percentage also agree that global warming should be addressed even if there are some economic costs.

Even well-known climate change skeptic Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist, has acknowledged that the 2.5 degree Fahrenheit global temperature increase over the last 250 years results from the human-caused release of greenhouse gases. In a recently published study, his research team concluded that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underestimated both the rate of surface warming and the human contribution.

It's time to take action. Please join us at 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 17, at the Medford Public Library.